What is the oddest way you have acquired a record?

I once had a rare VDGG bootleg LP that was recorded at the Beacon Theater in NYC. On the album there's a audience member saying something that is audible on the recording. I met that guy at a Peter Hammill show at the Bottom Line. He was also the same guy that produced one of the rarest Genesis bootlegs called "Living in a Twilight Alehouse". We traded my VDGG boot for his extra copy of his boot.

 

I found 2 Free [the band] albums leaning up against a tree a few months ago.

 

When I was 7, my teenage aunt gave me her copy of Meet The Beatles and told me she wasn't going to listen to it anymore because the Beatles "took drugs".
I wore that album out, standing in front of my parents stereo console, playing a tennis racket like a guitar.

 

I was around seven years old and walked alone into a record store a few doors down from my relative's health food store (back in the 70's, nobody thought twice about a little kid walking around a shopping center by themselves).

Walked up to the counter with The Beatles Second Album and pulled out a small coin purse that contained around eight dollars, mostly in Franklin real silver fifty-cent pieces. The clerk looked at my money, informed me my coins were valuable, and wouldn't accept them as payment. He gave me the record.

 

They're BOTH pretty great!

I don't even know if I've ever played my Mitch Miller record!

 

About 25 years ago, some mates and I were very bored, so we decided to crash a keg party we heard about. We all piled into a car and drove there. We push our way through the crowds, mad dogging people as we went, and made it to the keg ready to crack some skulls. Suddenly I hear my name being called from across the room. I looked over and there was a kid of about 17 I had been introduced to in passing a year or so before that at a different party. He comes up to us and says “I have something for you!” He takes me down to a parked car, pops the trunk, and hands me the LP of A Flock Of Seagulls self titled. I had been wanting that particular LP for some time, but he could not have known that, as I brushed him off a year ago as some annoying kid. I thanked him, went upstairs and grabbed all my mates after downing our beers, then left the party. He saved all of us from one hell of a mess up that night that likely would have ruined the party.

He ended up marrying my ex wife some years after that. I hope to tell that story during his funeral, as I know he would get a kick out of that. I still cherish that LP he gave me.

 

In the 1980s, at the Goodwill as-is, I found a bunch of '60s picture sleeves without the records, all in NM condition (Beatles, Doors, etc). because they were missing the records the clerk gave them to me.

 

This is a EXCELLENT read.

 

I was in a Mom-and-Pop store back in the early '80s looking at the LP of The Song Remains the Same. The owner started bragging that none of his records skipped. He goes, "Give me that record and Ill show you." He put it on and it started skipping, so he gave it to me.

 

My first copy of Sabbath’s Paranoid. Found it on the beach when I was 12. Sandy and slightly warped. It was The copy of that record that I had and played for several years.
I actually still have it....somewhere.

 

I received a copy of The Mamas and the Papas' If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears by sending in some number of cigar bands that my father saved for me. I don't remember how many bands were required, or the brand of cigar, but I know my dad smoked Dutch Masters a lot, so maybe it was that brand. I became a huge fan of the group because of that record.

 

When I was an apprentice, I was on a school job in the summer. My foreman at the time saw this 6 foot stuffed animal flamingo in a dumpster, I guess the school maintenance workers were cleaning out. He told me to go grab it and that will be our job mascot.

When I went to the dumpster, I grabbed the flamingos and at the corner of my eye I saw a bunch of albums. And of course, I checked them out. Out of all the albums, one album caught my fancy and I grabbed it. It was a first pressing of The Who Live at Leeds with all of the inserts also. And the album was Excellent (vinyl grade).

 

Heh. I love the rationale. Don't want to listen to a band on drugs, but my 7 year old nephew? Yeah, that should be fine.

 

Finding two records with a mindblowing sound in a pile of sheet iron while working in a steel yard handling peddlers.

Frank Zappa - Apostrophe’ on Discreet label.
The Who - Who’s Next on Decca rainbow label.

Lost them recently thanks to a flooding.

 

When I was a kid, 14 at this particular time, I used to frequent a corner store where I'd buy cigarettes. One day at the store I noticed this 45rpm record on the shelf - which was odd to begin with because this store didn't sell records. But the really strange thing was that the jacket was a photograph on one side that said The Beatles. When I turned it over it had baby pictures and said Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. Being a die-hard Beatles fan I was very perplexed because I had never heard these songs before. Also the photograph of "The Beatles" was very strange in that they all had moustaches which I'd never seen either.

I thought the record might be a fake but eventually decided to take a chance and I bought it. A week later I heard the songs on the radio for the first time.

 

And here is my first @Arnold Grove moment, no emoji needed:

 

A local college radio station plays CD-R's when there are no DJs there. So there was a song I liked, a lot, on one of the CD-R's. So I called up one of the DJs whose music was more like that song, and whose music I liked. I got her to dig up the exact track on the exact CD-R, so I donated some $$ to the station as a thank you, and I got the CD.

 

While walking on 7th Avenue in NYC (around 27th Street), I noticed someone had put a large number of items on the curb, including many 78 RPM records. I looked through and found five Hank Williams 78s on MGM! The rest were easy listening and the like. I took those five records home with me!

 

Seems like an even trade.

 

I found that in a thrift. Paid a buck and sounds great.

 

-butcher cover in the bottom of dumper filled with dirty baby diapers
-huge stack of maybe 25-30 Amos Milburn 78s (Aladdin Records) buried completely underneath a giant pile of 100 80s porno mags (this was 1997)
-u ever been somewhere where theres a record you want thats priced on the shelf, and you have the cash for it but yr parnoid the guy-at-counter would want it more or something so you stuff it in your pants anyway

 

wait wait wait wait wait. You went trick-or-treating, at the radio station, and you got Teach Your Childern white label promo? dog thats like the ultimate halloween trick-or-treating experience

 

In the early 70's when you subscribed to Rolling Stone you would get a free record in the mail. It happened to be the Worst of Jefferson Airplane who I wasn't much of a fan of yet. I picked up the record at the post office downtown and then walked up Yonge Street (Toronto) along the row of record stores. I saw a copy of Tea for the Tillerman in one of the smaller stores and asked if I could trade it for the Jefferson Airplane. He said yes, but charged me 20 cents.

 

I was robbing a liquor store and they were out of cash, so I took their Monkees records instead. At least that's the way I remember it. Could have just been a dream. Who knows......

 

Traded a red, personalized, B.B. King guitar pick he handed me at a concert for a used Led Zeppelin II CD.